Southern Highlands Branch Meeting 2021-6

“ANSTO’s WOMBAT Project”

Dr Helen Maynard-Casely
Senior Instrument Scientist
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation

Date: Thursday, 15 July 
Venue: Via email circulation

Summary

Dr Maynard-Casely was due to present this talk at the Mittagong RSL on 15 July 2021. Unfortunately, because of the updated COVID-19 restrictions associated with the Greater Sydney Lockdown in July 2021, this event has had to be cancelled. The Branch Committee regrets any inconvenience caused.

In the light of the current circumstances, the face-to-face event has been replaced by a YouTube recording titled “Exploring dwarf planets using neutron powder diffraction studies”.

 Dr Helen Maynard-Casely is an instrument scientist for the WOMBAT high-intensity powder diffractometer instrument. She assists and collaborates with visiting scientists, works with the sample environment team in commissioning new equipment for WOMBAT, and is co-responsible for improving and expanding the capabilities of the instrument.

Her own research expertise is in investigating the materials relevant to the surface of the icy moons, such as Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Titan. Her journey to exploring these icy moons began with her degree in Planetary Sciences from University College London and was followed by her PhD in high-pressure physics at the University of Edinburgh. Moving to Australia, first to undertake a post-doctoral position at the Powder-Diffraction beamline at the Australian Synchroton, where she developed her program of research on planetary ices - she then moved to the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering in 2013 to take up her current role.